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Living patches!


Sabrejet
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Ok... fellow member Patches sparked this one. How about compiling a selection of those incredible "Living patches" which are a tradition in the US Army...as below....34th ID.

 

post-8022-1337449956.jpg

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Jack's Son

These are great pictures!! I hope people contribute a lot to this thread, it will be a good one. :thumbsup:

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Jack's Son

EDIT: All pictures by JCFalkenbergIII were lost. They were blank posts so they were deleted.

 

 

JC.....thanks!
These are the type of photos that I would like to see, and memorialize ! :thumbsup:

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Try as I might, I as of yet counld not find any more old living patch photos, I,m hoping other members may have some and will share them hear, but I may yet find some as I'm always finding photos by ACCIDENT :lol:

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Game, set and match to Robert! Those are remarkable images. The vision, time and logistics it must've taken to assemble those living patches was incredible!

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JCFalkenbergIII
Game, set and match to Robert! Those are remarkable images. The vision, time and logistics it must've taken to assemble those living patches was incredible!

 

Thanks Sabrejet I agree. If you like the detail on those this one should blow you away :thumbsup: :w00t: . Robert

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In-credible!! How did they do that...and get such a perfect likeness?! Marshaling hundreds of bodies into the exact positions in appropriately coloured clothing...and having a high enough vantage point to (literally) oversee and photograph it all! :o

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As far as the height needed to look down to snap the shot is something I always wondered about too Ian, the ones done in the late Teens into the late 30s early 40s can be one of two methods I gathering, one the whole set up was done right under a very tall structure, a water tower comes to mind, or a tower was built specificaly for this purpose by either the Divisions Engineers or an Engineer unit co-located with the Division on the post. On the ones taken recently are easy, a long boom with a camera was used, one could say that this method might of been used in the old days, but did an Army post in say 1921 have access to such a piece of equipment as well as a camera that could be remotely phocused, and operated remotely in snaping pictures ?

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It's kind of like Mt Rushmore. You only get to see the likeness from a distance...but presumably these images would have had to have been marked out on the ground first? Also, there's the perspective to consider too! However they did it, it's pretty damn clever stuff!

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Third Herd

On of my biggest regrets is not buying photos like these years ago when they were easy to find and cheap. The photographer had to have everything planned out ahead of time. The 11th Division photo above had the Eleventh Division written out in campaign hats but the letters at the top are groups of men. To figure out all the perspective of the insignia on the early photos was done without a computer, a circle on the photo had to have been an oval of people. It would be nice if someone documented one of the photo shoots so we could see how it was done.

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...did an Army post in say 1921 have access to such a piece of equipment as well as a camera that could be remotely phocused, and operated remotely in snaping pictures ?

I once watched operation of an antique yard-long camera, which had a spring-loaded mechanism to move the focal point/lens from one side to the other in an arc smoothly without stopping.

 

Maybe this is something like what was used for these?

 

Here is an 1861 Sutton model panoramic camera, for example:

 

http://www.myplace.edu.au/TLF_resources/R6...escription.html

post-3976-1337545086.jpg

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JCFalkenbergIII

"Taken at the beginning of the 20th century, by English photographer Arthur S. Mole and his American colleague John D. Thomas, these living photographs show thousands of American soldiers posing as symbols of American history.

 

They traveled from one military camp to another taking photos of soldiers forming patriotic symbols as a part of planned promotional campaign to sell war bonds. Thousands soldiers would form gigantic patriotic symbols such as Statue of Liberty, president Woodrow Wilson, American Eagle or Liberty Bell which were photographed from above.

 

Mole and Thomas spent days preparing formations which were photographed from a 70 to 80 foot tower with an 11 by 14 inch camera. Photos by Mole and Thomas are now part of the Chicago Historical Society, the Museum of Modern Art and the Library of Congress.

 

In the picture of the Statue of Liberty there are 18,000 men: 12,000 of them in the torch alone, but just 17 at the base. The men at the top of the picture are actually half a mile away from the men at the bottom.

 

 

The Living Uncle Sam: 19,000 officers and men at Camp Lee, Virginia, January 13, 1919.

 

 

The Human US Shield: 30,000 officers and men at Camp Custer, Battle Creek, Michigan, 1918.

 

 

The living emblem of the United States Marines, formed by 100 officers and 9,000 enlisted men at the Marine Barracks, Paris Island, South Carolina.

 

 

A portrait of President Woodrow Wilson, formed of 21,000 officers and men at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio, 1918.

 

 

The Human Liberty Bell, formed by 25,000 officers and men at Camp Dix, New Jersey, 1918.

 

 

The Human American Eagle: 12,500 officers, nurses and men at Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Georgia, 1918.

 

 

Living insignia of the 27th Division, New York’s Own, breakers of the Hindenberg Line. Formed of 10,000 officers and enlisted men, March 18, 1919.

 

 

22,500 officers and men, 600 machine guns at Machine Gun Training Center, Camp Hancock, Augusta, Ga, December 10, 1918.

 

 

209th Engineers, Camp Sheridan, 1919.

 

 

The Panther, formed by the faculty and students of the University of Pittsburgh, April 9, 1920.

 

 

Indoctrination Division, Air Training Command, Lackland Air Base, San Antonio, Texas, July 19, 1947.

 

 

Hawaiian Division, Schofield Barracks.

 

 

The official seal of the Eleventh Division, Lafayette."

 

http://www.damncoolpictures.com/2009/07/li...and-thomas.html

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...
firefighter

I once watched operation of an antique yard-long camera, which had a spring-loaded mechanism to move the focal point/lens from one side to the other in an arc smoothly without stopping.

 

Maybe this is something like what was used for these?

 

Here is an 1861 Sutton model panoramic camera, for example:

 

http://www.myplace.edu.au/TLF_resources/R6...escription.html

 

 

YEARS ago I remember a special they had about the movie It's a Wonderful Life.Jimmy Stewart was saying they did a yard long photo of the cast & crew.He was expelling how the took a yard long.Everybody would stand in place and the photographer would take a pic and move down and take another till he had everybody.Mr. Stewart said he would move down every time the photographer moved, he didn't notice.So he's in the picture in 3 or 4 different spots.About 10yrs back I found a book on the movie and it had that photo.Sure enough he was in 3 or 4 different spots.Not military but thought it was interesting.Tried finding it on-line but had no luck.

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  • 2 months later...

Just found this when I was looking for an image of the 35th Infantry's DI to post up in Uniforms.

 

A currently done job by the 2nd Battalion 35th Infantry. Not so much a Living Patch as we see, but rather a depiction with GIs of the main symbol of their Regiment, the 35th Infantry's Famous Cactus, giving name the name to this unit, The Cacti.

post-34986-0-45799500-1378007323.jpg

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Just found this when I was looking for an image of the 35th Infantry's DI to post up in Uniforms.

 

A currently done job by the 2nd Battalion 35th Infantry. Not so much a Living Patch as we see, but rather a depiction with GIs of the main symbol of their Regiment, the 35th Infantry's Famous Cactus, giving name the name to this unit, The Cacti.

attachicon.gifphpjQdJiBPM.jpg

 

 

 

I like the use of service greens for shadowing. Rather artsy....

 

-Ski

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There are some nice pics in the WW1 era National Geographic with these type of pictures.Not sure if they said anything about them.I'll have to find the issue.Its the one with the patches in it.

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